For anyone still considering upgrading to the ad-free version of the site, this is just a friendly reminder that Sunday will be the last day to do so; I'm shutting the offer down at the end of the week. This promotion has never been available before and there's no telling when (or if) it will be available again, so act quickly if you dislike ads, enjoy helping people out, and would like to show your support of a site that presumably provides you with a fair amount of information and … [Read more...]

You hate seeing ads. I hate showing them to you. But they're sort of a necessary evil in terms of making the continued existence of the site possible over the long haul. That doesn't mean you have to see them, though. Through the end of next week, you can 'Turn Off the Ads' by becoming an official Country California supporter with a one-time donation of at least $25. If you were to figure that as the cost of a yearly subscription (which it's not), it would be just over $2 per month. So, if … [Read more...]

"Gutted" was a good word. That's the way singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters, she of "Independence Day" and "Chill of an Early Fall" and "You Don't Even Know Who I Am," described her feelings about the closure of The 9513 on Twitter yesterday. Over the last 4.5 years, The 9513 had come to define the online country music space. Its reviews, interviews, and articles set the standard for intelligent discourse. Its news roundups, continued so faithfully for so long by Brody, created community where … [Read more...]

What in the world?! As some of you might recall (although I'd be concerned if you did...), the design we've had since March 2009 happened quite by accident: I was fooling around with some code I shouldn't have been fooling around with late at night and finally reached a point where it was easier to start fresh with a new design than to set the old one right again. Total amateur mistake. Two years later, the new new look of Country California debuts under much happier circumstances. In … [Read more...]

The Top 10 Country Albums of 2010 just went live at The 9513, so hop over there for our overall list and individual staff lists for all nine contributors. That's the only place you'll find my final list (with comments) this year, but the bigger attraction is seeing what a cool bunch of folks I get to work with. As much as we might tend to skew toward the traditionalish when taken collectively, there were 39 different albums included among our individual Top 10s. That's some pretty good … [Read more...]

As this list of our most-read posts over the past year makes clear, Fake News continued to rank especially well in 2010, even as we published about 25% less of it compared to the feature's inaugural year of 2009. (Not for lack of interest or inspiration, by the way. We've just been busy. We'll try to get back on track in 2011.) As much as I like to see Fake News doing well, I also have grand ambitions of placing more editorials and 'serious' content in the Top 10, so I'll be working on more … [Read more...]